Performance gains?? Wtf are you talking about? A cooler CPU at load is not "better performance". Overclocking and possibly overvolting is what gives you PERFORMANCE. Thermal output is not PERFORMANCE. Jesus Christ…

Personally, I repaste my laptops with liquid metal ( coolabratory or conductonaut), just for the sake of never having to open it up again. Nice gain in temps to boot. I stick to the regular stuff for the desktop, since its much easier to repaste.

Another great little cheap hack, Get yourself some adhesive rubber lift feet from amazon. My m14x r2 with an i7-3820QM dropped 5-6c just from getting those.